In this satirical YouTube monologue, personal development coach TJ Walker opens with a Gallup poll showing that 89% of Americans—across party lines—believe government corruption is widespread. He humorously imagines the remaining 11% as skeptics, then launches into a series of examples illustrating how former President Donald Trump blurred the lines between public service and private profit: a Trump-branded cryptocurrency with lucrative buyer incentives, a $400 million Qatar‑gifted Boeing used as a private plane, pardons of Trevor Milton and Binance’s founder following large campaign donations, and the Justice Department’s dismissal of a case against NYC Mayor Eric Adams. Walker critiques the U.S. Mint’s Trump‑face collector coins as a “limited‑edition personality disorder” and proposes a “Presidential Humility and Wet Paint Act” to bar living presidents from having their likeness on government property. He pays tribute to feminist icon Gloria Steinem, highlighting her activism and self‑esteem teachings. Shifting to political forecasting, Walker evaluates the 2028 Republican field, singling out Ted Cruz as a likely nominee while mocking other contenders. Throughout, he intersperses comedic asides and concludes with a promotion for his Ultimize online courses, offering free communication and habit‑building classes. The piece blends political criticism, humor, historical homage, and personal‑development marketing.
Chapters
Ultimize. Gallup has discovered something I thought was constitutionally impossible: Americans agree. 89% of Americans now believe corruption is widespread throughout our government. 91% of Democrats believe it, 90% of independents believe it, and 83% of Republicans believe it. Apparently, government corruption is now our most successful bipartisan program. But I don't want to focus on the 89%. They are boring. They are read. I want to meet the other 11%. Who are these people? If you offered them 100-to-1 odds that the sun would set tonight, they'd say, hmm, I don't know. I like to keep an open mind. Their dentist points to 17 cavities and they say, that's one interpretation of the X-ray. You could catch their spouse in bed with the entire defensive line of the Miami Dolphins and they'd say, Let's not rush to judgment. Perhaps they're discussing zone coverage. Now, as a personal development coach, I admire optimism. I practice affirmations. I make vision boards. But refusing to see government corruption isn't positive thinking. It's putting a smiley-face sticker over the smoke detector. Maybe these people have simply been away. Perhaps they spent the last 3 years at a silent retreat without phones, television, newspapers, or conversations with anyone capable of saying, You're not going to believe this. So let's welcome them home with a brief orientation. Donald Trump launched a cryptocurrency bearing his name. The biggest buyers were offered dinner with the president. The top 25 qualified for an even more exclusive reception. In the old days, if you wanted access to a president, you had to hide the money inside an envelope. Now you can scan a QR code and receive reward points. Companies connected to Trump and a business partner controlled most of the coin supply, while the entities behind it collected hundreds of millions of dollars in fees. That's not a conflict of interest. A conflict suggests 2 separate interests. Well, these interests got married, opened a joint checking account, and registered at Mar-a-Lago. Then Qatar gave the United States a luxury Boeing 747 worth roughly $400 million for Trump to use as Air Force One. Trump called it a free plane. Well, of course it's free. Foreign governments are famous for distributing $400 million gifts without wanting anything. Qatar is basically the Oprah of jumbo jets. You get a plane, you get influence, everybody check under your diplomatic relationship. Trump also pardoned Trevor Milton, the Nikola founder convicted of fraud after Milton and his wife had donated more than $1.8 million to Trump's reelection effort. I'm not suggesting those 2 events were connected. I'm merely saying they were standing so close together they could share dental floss. Trump later pardoned the founder of Binance after Binance had helped strengthen the Trump family's cryptocurrency business. Again, perhaps entirely unrelated. I often pardon people immediately after they improve my family's finances. It's one of my worst habits. And when Trump's Justice Department ordered prosecutors to abandon the corruption case against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, multiple prosecutors resigned. One alleged that the dismissal amounted to a political quid pro quo involving Adams' cooperation with Trump's immigration agenda. The administration denied that, and technically, quid pro quo is an unfair description. It was more of a federal customer loyalty program. I'm not claiming every one of these episodes has been legally proven to be a crime, but in any other administration, any one of them would have produced congressional investigations, special counsels, and six months of cable news countdown clocks. With Trump. The 5th scandal arrives before we've finished pronouncing the cryptocurrency involved in the 4th one. That's the real insight behind Gallup's number. Americans may disagree about which officials are corrupt. We may disagree about who benefits. But practically everyone can see that the boundary between public service, private profit, political loyalty, and foreign influence has been erased. Corruption used to hide, occasionally, under the table. Trump gave it a promo code, a presidential pardon, and a seat at dinner. And somewhere, the remaining 11% are still waiting for more evidence. Perhaps the sun won't set tonight. Maybe it's negotiating a license deal. Would you like to be the sort of successful person who is dominating news, at least in your industry? Well, if so, it's time to up your skills. At ultimize.com, I've created online courses to help you do that. Now, here's the thing: no obligation. You can get a free course on communication skills, a free course on how to build better habits. All you have to do is go to ultimize.com. That's ultimize.com. No obligation. Go there now. That brings us naturally from Trump making money from the presidency to the government literally making Trump. The United States Mint is selling new gold-colored $1 coins featuring Donald Trump's face. Gold-colored is important. There's no actual gold in that. It's mostly copper wearing a very confident jacket. A bag containing $100 in Trump coins cost $154.50. A roll containing $25 costs $61. Now, to be fair, the Mint charges the same collector premiums for other special coins this year. So this particular markup is not a Trump scam. It is regular government pricing with a limited edition personality disorder. You send Washington $154, Washington returns $100 with Donald Trump's face on it. Hmm. Finally, an economic policy you can hold in your hand. The inscription includes the dates 1776 to 2026. Normally, 2 dates on a piece of metal suggest someone has died. I'm sure that's just another coincidence. Democratic presidential candidates should promise that their first executive order will prohibit federal money from putting any living president's name or face on government property. property. Not just coins— buildings, airports, performing arts centers, aircraft carriers, ballroom napkins, and bowling shoes. This wouldn't be an anti-Trump order. Call it the Presidential Humility and Wet Paint Act. No president should be allowed to name anything after himself while he can still walk over to the ribbon cutting and say, make the letters bigger. Trump spent years promising to put America first. He just neglected to mention that his face would be first on the money and everything else. Gloria Steinem, the journalist, organizer, and one of the most important leaders of the modern women's movement, has died at age 92. For more than half a century, she fought for equal pay, reproductive freedom, political representation, and the revolutionary proposition that women are people. Even when nobody's trying to date them. She helped create Ms. Magazine and the National Women's Political Caucus. She wrote books, organized women across the country, and received the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Early in her career, she spent 11 days working undercover as a Playboy Bunny and exposed the poor pay and degrading treatment behind the glamorous image. In other words, she infiltrated Playboy wearing the uniform and emerged carrying receipts. Some conservatives hated Steinem more because she refused to resemble their preferred caricature of the unattractive feminist. They wanted someone they could dismiss as angry, ugly, humorless, and hostile to men. Then Gloria Steinem appeared looking like a movie star, wearing aviator glasses, and calmly making a better argument than they did. That was considered deeply in No time to redo. That was deeply inconsiderate. If you're going to challenge male power, the least you can do is conform to male power's stereotype of you. Steinem even wrote a book about self-esteem and personal development. So she didn't merely demand that society give women more power. She encouraged women to stop waiting for society's permission. That may be her most threatening idea. You can fight a political organization. It's much harder to defeat millions of people who have removed you from their vision boards. Now let's put on our serious political analysis caps. Ted Cruz says it's no secret that he still wants to become president. It's easy to laugh, but Cruz has to be taken seriously. He won 11 Republican contests in 2016 and finished second to Donald Trump. Let's be honest here. Ted Cruz is a world-class, let's say, jerk. Let's say— I'm trying to keep this clean— a-hole, shall we say. His problem in 2016 was that he entered the jerk and a-hole Olympics against the master of the universe. Trump didn't merely win, he insulted the judges, renamed the stadium, and awarded himself a platinum medal. But there's only one Donald Trump. If Republican voters continue selecting the candidate who irritates liberals the most, the candidate liberals hate the most, well, Cruz has a real path to 2028. Marco Rubio's too polished, and he just doesn't seem like he has his heart into being a world-class jerk. Ron DeSantis already demonstrated that running an entire state as an argument with Disney does not automatically make you likable or anything. J.D. Vance is formidable, but he occasionally displays doubt, introspection, and other dangerous signs of human life. Cruz has spent years cultivating the warmth of a parking enforcement notice. Even Republican senators who— note editor, note editor, redo. Even Republican senators who agree with him seem to regard disliking Ted Cruz as their last connection to ordinary Americans. So if the 2028 contest becomes, who would Democrats least like to be trapped beside on a delayed flight, Ted Cruz has earned the edge. Of course, this analysis assumes there will be a normal presidential election in 2028. I still don't expect Trump to leave office gracefully or any other way. I'm evaluating the 2028 Republican field the way passengers on the Titanic might evaluate the dessert menu. There are several interesting choices. First, let's confirm the dining room remains above water. Trump may announce that elections create wasteful government duplication. America already selected him twice, or perhaps 7 times, depending on which speech you're watching. Why make people vote again when he can save taxpayers money by declaring himself the unanimous winner? That is called efficiency. And possibly corruption. But let's wait and see what the other 11% think. Finally, the Trump administration is spending roughly $253,000 on lighting for the White House bowling alley, plus thousands more to escort the workers through secure areas. I can already picture Trump bowling. The ball rolls directly into the gutter. The digital scoreboard displays a big Zero. Trump freezes. This is Biden's bowling alley. The scoring machine is rigged. Within minutes, the FBI seizes the computer. Pam Bondi is called out of retirement. She opens an investigation. The technician is accused of belonging to Antifa. By morning, the official score has been corrected to 300. That's right, Trump's perfect game. Trump releases a photograph of himself holding the presidential bowling trophy. which did not exist the night before. And the scoreboard receives a new presidential affirmation: I do not throw gutter balls. The pins failed to recognize my strike. I'm TJ Walker. Thanks for joining me. Please post your comments below. Ultimize.
